Today, the modern world is progressing towards adapting AI, which aims towards making life simpler and easier for both businesses and individuals. However, the dangers of AI are well-known to everyone in the industry such as DDoS attacks. It was first noticed in 1974 and gained momentum on the global scale by 2000, in which DDoS attack was conducted on e-commerce websites like Amazon & eBay.
DDoS stands for Distributed Denial of Service by which a certain machine or network is programmed to be unavailable or temporarily shut down for the users, it comes under the category of the malicious uses of ai. In other words, hackers try to disrupt the usual website traffic on a targeted server with the help of compromised systems or botnets. It is regarded as the most powerful tool or weapon available on the internet. Similarly, in this article, we are listing the 5 most famous DDoS attacks so far.
GitHub 2018
One of the most recent and massive DDoS attacks in when the GitHub developer platform was hit by 1.3 terabits per second. In just 10 minutes, the automatic preventing measures started working and notified the developers. While it took about the next 8 minutes for GitHub’s developers to control the situation by filtering the malicious packets. However, it exposed the backend protection of the GitHub platform which was penetrated by hackers and gained access to the special commands of the server. Although, GitHub continued to divert the traffic for the next several hours by using Prolexic systems.
Attacker: Unknown
Reason for Attack: To highlight the weakness of the GitHub developer platform
Impact of the Attack: GitHub platform went offline for several minutes
Czech voting website 2017
Voting is the most crucial element of democracy and should be conducted without any interference from foreign elements. However, in 2017 the Czech voting website that is volbyhned.cz and volby.cz websites run by the office of the Czech Statistical department become inaccessible to the general public or users. The office issued a statement in which it was clearly stated that the temporary shutdown of the websites was due to the DDoS attack on the O2 Company’s server infrastructure. However, the department clearly stated that the attack did not have any effect on the results of the elections as it comes under the independent data processing system. Although, later it was found out that the attack was not conducted to disrupt the election process but to steal the confidential government data.
Attacker: Unknown
Reason for Attack: To steal the confidential government data
Impact of the Attack: Temporary shutdown of the websites: volbyhned.cz and volby.cz
DYN DDoS attack 2016
DYN servers are known to control most of the domain name system (DNS) infrastructure on the internet. With the best possible web protection available at their disposal, DYN still faced the DDoS attack leading to the disruption in their services in 2016. On 21 October 2016, the DDoS attack on the Dyn server brought down some of the popular websites such as Twitter, Netflix, CNN, and many others in the US and most of the European region. In terms of malicious traffic hitting the Dyn server was topped at around 665 gigabits per second with 100,000 malicious endpoints. It was found to be multiple botnet-based attacks called Mirai using IoT (Internet of Things) devices. With Mirai integration under DDoS botnet attack, it leads to the collapse of the server functioning due to strain caused by the high volume of traffic.
Attacker: Unknown
Reason for Attack: To Highlight the low-web security protection on DYN servers
Impact of the Attack: Leads to temporary offline of the customer’s websites
Conclusion
As we listed out the 3 most famous DDoS attacks so far, there are multiple attacks happening on a minor scale frequently. It is essential for the new businesses or startup founders who are planning to go online, to understand the importance of protecting their websites and servers from internet attacks. It is necessary to have knowledge about the DDoS attack detection methods and analytics in place to defend yourself. Additionally, the increase in the number of these kinds of attacks creates challenges for the DDoS solution developers across the globe which in turn creates competition with the hackers. Meanwhile, adequate security measures are becoming a necessity for safe and successful online businesses.